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Religion Is Contagious!

Mark Liberman (at LanguageLog) has been posting on "Language as a Virus" and now expands (with help from Cosma Shalizi) to "Culture" (specifically, religion) as a contagious phenomenon, citing Pliny (Ep. 10.96.9) on the Christians:

One more: Tacitus, discussing measures against Egyptian and Jewish rites, (Ann. 2.85) mentions 4000 freedmen "infected with that [sic] superstition" (quattuor milia libertini
generis ea
superstitione infecta)...although "infecta" by itself is not as specific as the English "infected."

The Christians gave as good as they got, of course: The metaphor appears, for example in the title of Theodoret's great work of apologetic, Graecarum Affectionum Curatio, "Cure of the Greek Maladies"[the Greek title being: Hellenikon therapeutike pathematon]. (Greek text via Google Books)